The Wild West. There were all sorts of things going on during those heady times. Towns were filled with Marshals, Bounty Hunters, Outlaws, and anyone else seeking fortune and opportunity. And that's where you'll end up in Cactus Town, a new programming board game that's up on Kickstarter now.

From the campaign:

Cactus Town is an asymmetric action programming game for 2 to 4 players. A highly interactive game of fast paced chase & escape.Sleepy little Cactus Town is going to see some action: you can wear the Sheriff’s badge, join a group of dangerous outlaws, seek ransom as a bounty hunter or even use the power of seduction being an avenging Can Can dancer. Each party has its own objectives and its own special actions, making this a perfect gateway game for asymmetric gameplay. With playing time of just 10-15 minutes per player, you can swap and play various parties each session.

The campaign's about 2.5x funded with 21 days left to go.

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Inside a distant galaxy, several races have become space-faring at roughly the same time. As such, the race is on to colonize and establish trade in this ripe, new space. That's where you find yourself in Galactic Era, a new board game from Seajay Games that's been relaunched over on Kickstarter.

From the campaign:

Galactic Era is an innovative space empire builder boardgame for 1-6 players. You control a fledgling space-faring civilization venturing out into the galaxy. You will explore and colonize distant planets, advance your technologies, trade with allies and battle your enemies.

You will also need to select an alignment for your faction (star people), either "light" or "dark". This will determine appropriately how you interact with other players and the game.

Further original game elements are the deterministic combat system and the trading of technologies.

Galactic Era could become the next king of epic space strategy games! You decide!

The campaign is up and over its funding goal with 26 days left to go.

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Lots of pre-orders from Pandasaurus right now, eh? Here's another. This one is Robots and it's a 2020 Kinderspiel de Jahres nominee where players are trying to decide just what speed truly means. Can you and your other players figure it out without being able to talk to one-another?

From the website:

A game of time and speed! 

Robots is a 2020 Kinderspiel des Jahres nominee in which players must work together (or separately!) to figure out what speed means to each other. 

How far do you think the robot will move in about 4 seconds? Well, it depends on how fast it's going! Players must develop a feeling for time and speed together without talking. It won't take long for the team to work out where the robot has stopped!

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The Necrons are an ancient race that long ago eschewed the weaknesses of organic material for the strength of metal and plastic. In the upcoming Necron Codex, they will be getting a whole host of new rules and options. In this article, we get a preview of some of them.

From the article:

The Necrons have awoken and are getting ready to reclaim the galaxy. That’s not going to be easy – they’re going to need some new units and rules. So, today we’re taking you through some of the options in the new Necron codex that will take you from mere Necron Overlord to galactic ruler.

The new codex features Dynastic Codes for six Necron empires, including the Szarekhan Dynasty for the first time, along with options to create your own.* We’ll be taking a closer look at those rules tomorrow.

Today, we’re focussing on the range of rules and army-wide abilities that benefit your force regardless of which dynasty they belong to. For example, Reanimation Protocols have always been a huge part in the way that Necron armies play and they have undergone a slight change in the new codex. Your Necrons can still come back from wounds that would take any other warrior out of action, but now you roll when models are destroyed rather than at the beginning of your turn.

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Tuesday. We've made it into the work week proper. Hopefully, your Monday wasn't overly-Monday-like. Mine was chill. Stuff to work on, but nothing crazy. Just busy enough to make the day go by, which is exactly how I like it. And while I've been continuing to enjoy my Type O Negative station on Pandora, it's time to get some gaming podcasts in your ears. Let's see what's on the dial this week.

Game Classy Episode 217: Toot Toot Heroquest!

boat games, Heroquest, Godtear, and 3d printing.

D6 Generation Pip Episode 50: DnD Live Session 8

Our DnD live session 8 finds our heroes working through the red brand hideout. Will they survive it or will it survive them?

Polyhedron Collider Episode 88: Tellstones, Star Scrappers Orbital, and Heart RPG

Join us in welcoming the newest member of the PHC family, Sid, as he joins us to discuss the new Heroquest, Canadian board game cafes and not being able to hold our alcohol anymore.

He then into some in depth chat about Tellstones, the latest game from Mechs vs Minions studio Riot games; Star Scrapper Orbital the upcoming Kickstarter from Hexy Studio; and Heart: The City Beneath, a crazy game about going deeper underground.

The Offline Gamer Podcast Episode 56: We're 5 Years Old!

Who'd have thought it, we've been doing this for five years! In this episode we look back over the past five years, as well as borrow a format from another podcast and discuss our top ten board games in our collection.

Lords of the Dungeon Episode 42: Star Trek Adventures Post Mortem and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Pre-Game

In episode 42, The Lords start out by discussing their Star Trek adventures 3 part campaign and decide whether they enjoyed the system or not and why, take a question from a listener regarding tracing their origins of when they got into roleplaying games and finish off by discussing their next campaign in the Old World using Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th edition.

Rolling Dice & Taking Names Episode 209: Tammany Hall, EOTN-Barbarians, Warp’s Edge, Ohanami, Yukon Airways, Silver Dagger, Tellstones, Yukon Airways, Rise of Red Skull

We had a penalty on this episode, False start. So be sure to pay attention at the end if you can make it that long. According to Marty, there was a bunch of stuff going on about review of Tellstones and how some reviews are negative and some are positive and how people are saying that the negative reviews have integrity over the positive reviews. Whatever. It is a memory game and if you like those types of games, especially if they are quick and simple, then you might like this. If you are like me and short term memory is being challenged, then you might really need to consider this game. Weigh the good with the bad and see if it is worth your time. And both the wives enjoy this type of game.

Now Tammany Hall is an old game and one we never got to play until the re-release. Game with simple actions wrapped in warm, soft strategy, no wonder it is a favorite of so many. However, we didn’t experience the backstabbing because I believe the player count (3 people) kept that from happening. If you like the area control style games, you might want to give this a play but be warned, you will have to remember what the actions are so memory is involved

Empires of the North Barbarians was a good expansion to get on the table. Love the interaction that these clans provided to the game versus the head down do your own thing. Silver Dagger expansion gets back to the roots in Silver line and thankfully it does. We can see where bringing some of these cards over to the original set would create more mayhem than already exists with this memory game.

If your favorite team out on the pitch is the Lizardmen (like it is for me), then you'll be excited to see that Avatars of War has a new Saurian Player available to order from over in their webshop. He's lean. He's mean. He's spiky as all hell. Head on over and pick up yours now.

From the announcement:

Another AoW miniature enters the Gridiron! The second pick for this new range (comprised of Fantasy Football versions of some of our figures), is one of our Saurian Heroes.

We hope it will crush many bones on the pitch! 

Make sure to click on the link to see full details and 360º view of this new miniature

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Blackstorm Realms is a new setting for your RPGs, but it's also all your settings for all your RPGs. Being a setting with plenty of ways into new realms and new worlds, it's a great bridge for others, as well as integrating plenty of new content that it brings to the table itself. This new book is up on Kickstarter now.

From the campaign:

Players and game masters, this book is for you. You might be wondering why you need yet another 5e resource book– but hang on. This isn't just "another 5e world book". Blackstorm Realms is all about YOUR worlds. Yes...worlds. And, it's about character customization options with our optional game mechanics called Aparatum. It is a playground without boundaries having fresh lore to invigorate your campaigns and provide new places and a system of customization to keep your games from being the same and stale.

Blackstorm Realms allows you to incorporate your own homebrew realms, well-known official realms, and third party realms into one seamless universe and provides you with the means to move back and forth between all of them. Are there suns and moons and stars in your realm? Then give your players an opportunity to discover what's on them, not just what's beyond the horizon, BUT also what is beyond the BEYOND!

In Blackstorm Realms, you are introduced to at least three new realms that exist in a galaxy known as The Celestial Tree. Feel free to create your own backstory or realms, but Blackstorm Realms offers you the mechanics to move players between realms. You'll have access to rules that govern a galaxy filled with a near-infinite amount of realms to explore.

The campaign's about 3/5 of the way to its goal with 38 days left to go.

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In a way, all of us just lost The Game. But that's a different The Game to the one from Pandasaurus. That The Game is getting a new version this October. It's The Game: Quick & Easy and it sees players once more trying to build stacks of cards, trying to play them all out whenever possible.

From the website:

Play a card, draw a card - that couldn't be easier, right?  

Just like in the award-winning original, in The Game: Quick & Easy everyone works together as a team to play as many cards as possible on two stacks. On your turn, play one or two cards then draw back up. On one stack, cards are played in ascending order (1-10). On the other stack, they are played in descending order (10-1).

 Cards come in five different colors, with numbers 1-10 in each color. There's a trick: you can ignore the ascending/descending rule when playing cards on top of a matching color!

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Armada is Mantic's new fantasy naval warfare game. It takes place in the Kings of War universe, with the various factions getting accompanying fleets. In this preview, we get a look at what the Basilieans use when they set sail for adventure.

From the preview:

Welcome to the first of our faction focus blogs for Armada – the game of epic naval warfare. In the run-up to release, we’re going to be introducing the four launch factions, along with their key ships. Today, we’re kicking things off with the pious Basileans.

Basilea is the greatest nation of men in Pannithor, and possesses arguably the best human navy. Their ships are certainly a sight to behold, with brilliant white sails and sculpted golden prows proclaiming their devotion to the Shining Ones.

Characterised by massive ships of the line, supported by an array of smaller, more specialised vessels, Basilean fleets are unlike any other human warfleets in both appearance and battle tactics. Like all human warfleets, however, the Basilean Navy depends upon sail for its speed and manoeuvrability. Their sailors are expert in bringing vessels alongside the enemy, or even crossing their bows, so that the gunners might unleash several decks of thunderous broadsides, delivering the divine wrath of the Shining Ones to their foes. Indeed, of all human fleets, it is the Basileans who both pioneered and perfected the tactic of breaking the enemy line, developing the Dictator-class warship for just that purpose. For the Basileans, victory alone is not enough – the enemy, should they be faithless, must be destroyed utterly.

Much like on land, the Basileans dedicate all they do to the gods. Some liken the Basilean ships to floating temples, which in the case of the larger vessels is literally true. Priests are assigned to every ship, blessing cannon-shot as it is loaded, and filling the crew with a sense of righteous piety as they go to war. In battle, the Elohi swoop overhead, their battle-hymns inspiring zealous fervour within the faithful, and dread in the wicked. Their most famous warships are emblazoned with names like Wrath of Domivar, Kolosu’s Glory, and Hegemon’s Fury – names that evoke a solemn and reverential pride in their crews, who would rather fight to the last sailor than abandon one of these glorious vessels.

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Each Space Marine chapter has, over time, distinguished itself from one-another. They all choose to focus on different tactics when dealing with the enemies of the Imperium. In the upcoming Space Marine Codex, each chapter will get its own set of rules to set it apart. In this preview, we get a look at just what some of those will be.

From the article:

The biggest and best-ever edition of Codex: Space Marines is up for pre-order this weekend, and over the coming days, we’ll be taking a peek inside its covers to showcase some of its most exciting features. Today, we’re looking at the Chapter Tactics for the First Founding Chapters and their most famed successors, and how you can even choose your own Successor Tactics using the new book.

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